A neighborhood is at odds with a plan to make Happy Hollow Heights West Lafayette’s second historic preservation district

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Kevin Kaufman gives his dog Jackie a scratch behind the ears as he enjoys the view of the snow covered trees from the back deck of his home on Hollowood Drive in Happy Hollow Heights Monday, April 9, 2018, in West Lafayette. "This is one of my favorite parts about living here, because of the snow," said Kaufman.(Photo: John Terhune/Journal & Courier)Buy Photo

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – While the rest of Greater Lafayette’s morning commute was moaning over one more late-season snow, Kevin Kaufman was on his back deck, relishing the encroachment of winter into a three-week-old spring and the way it had dusted the ravine leading down to Happy Hollow Park.

“It’s just beautiful in the trees, all that snow,” Kaufman said. “It’s not going to last. But I’ll take it. It’s one of the reasons I love living where I do.”

About that deck, one Kaufman added about 20 years ago to the one-story ranch built in 1956 on Hollowood Drive in the Happy Hollow Heights neighborhood, he offered an aside.

“Would I have been able to build it if what the city had in mind was around back then?” Kaufman asks. “I’m not sure I want to find out now.”

The question stands at a moment when the West Lafayette Historic Preservation Commission is taking a step back on a plan to make Happy Hollow Heights the city’s second historic preservation district. If approved, the nine-member Historic Preservation Commission eventually would get to review exterior improvements for the neighborhood’s 56 homes.

After a wave of complaints about the proposal in recent weeks, a public hearing scheduled for Tuesday will amount to the Historic Preservation Commission tabling the idea for now, said Erik Carlson, West Lafayette’s development director.

“What we’ll discuss (Tuesday) is whether this is merely a reset and whether we need to move forward,” Carlson said. “If it turns out that the neighborhood isn’t interested in doing this, we’re not going to be interested in doing it, either.”

Right now, there are factions on both sides – some who say the neighborhood is at risk of the encroachment of “McMansions” seen in other parts of West Lafayette, and others who have started to rally against the idea of a board telling them what sort of windows and shingles they can use.

Arnold Sweet, a Historic Preservation Commission member who lives in Happy Hollow Heights, has been chasing a historic preservation district for his neighborhood for the past year.

Happy Hollow Heights was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2015. The designation offers a bit of prestige and a selling point for the 54 homes – an eclectic collection of ranch, split-level and mid-20th century modern designs – built in the ’50s and ’60s along ridgelines on 26 acres on the west side of Happy Hollow Road. The neighborhood includes homes on Laurel, Fernleaf, Hollowood and Sumac drives, along with two homes on Happy Hollow Road.

The federal designation offers no special protections or building restrictions, though.

In that case, for the first three years, property owners who wanted to construct, demolish or move structures in the New Chauncey neighborhood had to get permission from the Historic Preservation Commission.

A second phase kicked in during the summer of 2016, requiring property owners to apply for a “Certificate of Appropriateness” from the Historic Preservation Commission for “a conspicuous change in the exterior” of buildings “subject to the view from a public way by additions, construction, alteration or maintenance.” (Not included: Paint color choices.)

Sweet emphasized the first phase to protect Happy Hollow Heights homes from being demolished to make way for homes that don’t fit the aesthetic of the neighborhood. He pointed to a home on Sumac Drive that had been renovated in a way that made it conspicuous in the neighborhood and a noncontributing property for the federal historic neighborhood designation.

“If it happens on Salisbury (Street), it could happen here,” Sweet said. “We’ve already seen it happen. I’m not sure we want to see more of it.”

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The intersection of Fernleaf Drive, Hollowood Drive and Happy Hollow Road Monday, April 9, 2018, in Happy Hollow Heights in West Lafayette.(Photo: John Terhune/Journal & Courier)

The idea stalled when a number of neighbors caught on to the second part of the historic preservation district ordinance and what it would mean any time they wanted to swap out a window, build a fence or install siding. More than 30 neighbors signed a petition against the plan.

“I think a big question for us was: What do we get for doing this?” said Jason Snow, who said he and his wife moved to a home on Hollowood Drive two years ago, attracted to a design by Robert Smith, who did a handful of homes in the neighborhood.

“The more we looked into it,” Snow said, “the more that it seemed like the answer was: Not much.”

Kaufman said neighbors got a sense that the Historic Preservation Commission was trying to do things quietly to get the ball rolling on an ordinance and force those against it to play defense.

“This is about more than just keeping the McMansions, or whatever they’re calling them, out,” Kaufman said. “We just don’t want a committee of bureaucrats telling us what we can do.”

Rebecca Trent, who has lived on Fernleaf Drive since 2003, said the Historic Preservation Commission “likes to espouse that they’re there for guidance.” She said neighbors resent the sense that the commission sees itself as knowing what’s best for individual houses.

“‘Guidance’ isn’t a good term when they make the final decisions,” Trent said.

Felice Bray and her husband had their home built on Hollowood Drive in 1955. She’s lived there ever since. (“I won’t leave,” Bray said. “I love my home and my neighborhood so much.”) But she doesn’t understand the opposition to a preservation ordinance.

“I don’t agree with those who say, ‘You can’t tell me what to do with our house.’ When it comes to the overall good and look of the neighborhood, I say you can,” Bray said. “I just don’t think they should be as afraid of it as they seem to be. … I want to get along with all the people in my neighborhood, but I know we don’t see eye-to-eye on the issue.”

Sweet said he would defer to Carlson, who told the neighborhood in a post on the NextDoor app that the city planned to take its time to work through any questions and confusion about what the commission does.

Peter Bunder, a member of the Historic Preservation Commission and president of the West Lafayette City Council, sponsored the 2013 ordinance to create the commission and New Chauncey as a historic preservation district. Bunder said he backed the proposal to make Happy Hollow Heights the second district in the city.

“Famous last words of the child of elderly New Chauncey homeowners who sold his family home quickly and cheaply: ‘This used to be a great neighborhood, but the city didn't do anything to save it,’” Bunder said. “Well, then we did. Land use (plan). Historic preservation. Neighborhood Resource Team. Why wait to hear that again someplace else?”

Kaufman said he considered this week’s delay a “strategic retreat.” He said neighbors against the idea assume it will come back, at some point. He said he didn’t believe the neighbors he’s been talking with are going to be talked into thinking a historic preservation district is a good idea.

“My home, on its own, isn’t that special,” Kaufman said. “It’s the setting. That’s what this neighborhood is all about. That’s why a lot of people are against this.”